For the love of that woman
by mirai aria
Summary: He does everything for a reason. He wants the end for both the demons and the humans, he wants destruction and peace in the emptiness - He wants all these for a reason. It's all for the love of that woman.


Disclaimer: Adelpoo and Julia and any other character used (for my own evil purposes) in this story do not belong to me and I do not profit from this in any way… XD

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for the love of that woman**

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If there was one good thing about humans, it was certainly how they made good use of their time and their lives. For humans, the proverb 'time is gold' held true. Humans are quick to act, knowing next year they may no longer be adept enough to do what could be done today. They fight when provoked, they move ahead whenever they could letting no opportunity slide away unnoticed and all this because every day they are but a step deeper in their grave.

The same cannot be said about the demon race. Unlike their human counterparts, the demons could easily age to a hundred and still be at the prime of their lives, possessing a life span that could be more than four to five times longer than a normal human's. They bide their time, knowing the next year is but a season in their reckoning and wait and wait…. and wait until their enemy makes the first move or wears down. They called themselves the superior race, having the ability to call upon nature's spirits and other demonic creatures to aid them and being able to live far longer than the humans. In their eyes, superiority lay in the battlefield and so far, no other country in the world has bested their glorious kingdoms' prowess.

Adelbert von Grantz scoffed at the thought and took a sip of wine from his glass before setting it back on the dining table. He turned his head to the right and gazed out of the windows, taking note of the frosty white snow caking the landscape outside and smiling. Battle-hardened as he was and bitter, maybe, he held a soft spot for Winter if only because the dominating color in the season, white, reminded him ever so dearly of his fiancée, Julia.

Julia had been a beautiful, gentle and caring young woman, someone who accepted everything with grace. She had been one of a kind and the fact that she had been engaged to him, arranged or not, made him deeply proud. He loved her, he still did, and had hoped to make her love him in return, eventually.

However, she had died in the war, fading out of her people's lives like any other soldier who had fallen in the battlefield. It hadn't been the enemies' fault even and Julia didn't die under someone's sword, she had died because of someone, a fellow demon's fault and the fact that _that _had been shrugged off as something sacrificial, something for the kingdom, would never, never leave his mind. It gnawed at his thoughts everyday, the thought that the culprits behind her death had gone unpunished the way they should have been…

Huber, the culprit, the selfish prideful _demon_ who had been the cause of her death, should have died and yet the only thing they did was _exile_ him. He wasn't thrown in jail, stripped off his nobility – none of that. Just exiled under the guise of being sent on a mission, an impossible mission, to retrieve a long lost, perhaps even non-existent, flute. And that was it. He thought Julia was worth more, more than this flimsy Justice. Apparently, however, being the cousin to one floozy demon queen who never did _anything_ to rule their Kingdom and left everything in her equally inadequate brother's sons meant you were entitled to some form of _mercy_. So that no matter how grave your sin was, you could rest assured you'll live to have a normal life afterwards, even in exile.

He loathed them for it. Hated them for their injustice and how they brushed Julia, their most beloved _White Julia_, aside and passed her off as just one other casualty of war.

Humans were greedy, lowly creatures who sought nothing but power. He had always prided himself for being of the higher race but after Julia's death he saw how they were just the same. Superior, indeed. They, as demons, had grown up being told over and over again about how the humans were inferior, how their government was inadequate, their ideals nothing but superficial and how they, as demons, were far advanced in all aspects of life. He had fought for those beliefs, justified the deaths of the puny humans with them – he still did, in fact, even if now he called them comrades, if not with a little grudge.

Adelbert's eyebrows drew together in a deep frown when it darkened outside, as well as in the dining room with the windows being the room's primary source of light. At that moment, small puffs of white began descending from the darkened clouds, innocent tears from the sky above. The first thought that came in his mind was to call a servant to light the candles in the room, or light them himself, the next thought was to stop dining altogether and move to do something more productive for the rest of the night like study their latest battle plan. Instead, he opted to remain seated at the dining table and took another sip from his wineglass, losing himself deeper in his retrospection.

He smiled suddenly then, a dark smile that had become a trademark of his, remembering why exactly he had decided to side with the humans despite his less-than pleasant view of their existence. It was to avenge Julia and to ultimately bring down their incompetent government, even maybe, defy and prove their 'God', the Shin'nou, wrong. After all, wasn't it _He_ who placed Cecilie von Spitzberg on the throne knowing fully how she would just flaunt and _whore _her way into ruling the kingdom and leave her brother to make all the 'difficult' choices.

Their latest addition to the king's line was no better, either. This time instead of a queen who could have whored her way up the social ladder to queen instead of being chosen specifically by the Shin'nou, their new ruler was an idiotic half-human, half-demon _boy_ who was as dumb and wimpy as he looked.

He twirled the wineglass in his hand and closed his eyes, listening to the smooth sound of liquid swirling inside its container. He would topple Shinmakoku's government, rebuild it from scratch and pull his race from the pits of shame and decadence. He would make it so that justice would be passed down indiscriminately and harshly. He would do it for Julia.

_I wish for peace. _

His breath caught at the sound of her voice in his mind and he opened his eyes. He glared at the reflection the wine in his glass projected and then his expression softened as he smiled.

"I'll give you peace, Julia."

The doors to the room opened suddenly and a soldier under his command entered, saluting him with a stiff greeting before stating the reason for his presence.

"His majesty summons you, Lord von Grantz."

Adelbert von Grantz rose from his chair and returned the glass on the table before striding towards the soldier. The soldier gave him a nod before heading out of the room and the von Grants Lord stopped at the doorway, giving the white-filled view outside the windows one last look, before taking yet another step closer to the Maou's destruction.

It had stopped snowing outside.

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A/N : (stabstabstab) I love Adelpoo. I love Adelpoo. He was so cute. He was so adorable, if only a bit too prideful, but he's so cute :-O Just watched that episode (31 or 32 ..) in subs again and was dumbstruck by how he tried to make 'reasons' as to why he was in Julia's room. I feel sorry for him. And this fic has been seating in my HD for a few months now. Time to get rid of annoying things :-D

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